Starting pitchers Walker Buehler, left, and Stephen Strasburg might dole out more stress than they feel themselves during Game 5 of the NLDS between the Dodgers and Nationals on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium. (Photos by by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG and The Associated Press)

If there’s a Dodger fan in your life, be thoughtful. Reduce the stress.

Point out that if the Dodgers lose Game 5 to Washington on Wednesday night, it will not be the biggest upset in the history of best-of-five series.

Do not point out that the Dodgers would then become the eighth 100-win team since 2008 to get eliminated before the World Series, which means it wouldn’t be history either.

While the Dodgers won 13 more games than Washington did this season, the 1973 Reds won 17 more games than the Mets.

Back then the LCS was a five-gamer, and after dramatic developments like a scrap between Pete Rose and Buddy Harrelson and then a 12th-inning, game-winning, fist-raising homer by Rose in Game 4, the Mets won Game 5, 7-2. Tom Seaver ruled the mound that day.

In the days of the NLDS, two 13-game underdogs have come through. The Dodgers of 2008 were one, as they swept the Cubs and got 6-1/3 scoreless innings from Hiroki Kuroda. Five years before that, the Cubs won a five-game series over the Braves, as Kerry Wood got two of the wins and handcuffed Atlanta with eight one-run innings to clinch it.

You might have detected a pitching theme here. Walker Buehler and Stephen Strasburg are the starters that this Game 5 deserves.

There were many questions on Tuesday and Wednesday about nerves and pressure and dread, and that is legitimate. A Dodger loss in Game 5 would be a vicious liver shot, one that would mock everything they accomplished in a 162-game slog that featured big numbers and long bombs and new faces and not one really urgent game.

Buehler and Strasburg will be more relaxed than anyone. They both feel they have the game right there, nestled in their gloves. They love the opportunity to diminish everyone else on the field. They don’t suffer stress, but they’re carriers.

Strasburg was the No. 1 overall pick in the Mike Trout draft of 2010. Buehler went 24th in the first round of 2015. He and Houston’s Alex Bregman are the only players among the top 36 picks in that draft who are All-Stars.

Strasburg has pitched in an Olympics and had 40,000 people at his MLB debut. Buehler has pitched high-stakes NCAA regional and College World Series games at Vanderbilt, pitched the championship game of the Cape Cod League, and this will be the third time he has started a win-or-go-home game for the Dodgers.

But then Houston’s Gerrit Cole was the first overall pick in 2011 (and was 28th, out of Orange Lutheran, by the Yankees in 2008. Justin Verlander was No. 2 in 2005. The prime-time starting pitcher is the most powerful figure in the game, because that’s how he’s been raised. Thanks to these playoffs for reminding us.

Will Buehler and/or Strasburg good enough to overcome their own bullpens? They will be given every opportunity, but those slump-busting relievers have a combined 7.52 ERA.

Except for Adam Kolarek’s three consecutive takedowns of left-hander Juan Soto, the Dodgers have only found night-to-night comfort in Kenta Maeda. Kenley Jansen has pitched one inning since Sept. 28.

This could also be a Clayton Kershaw moment. He relieved Yu Darvish in Game 7 of the 2017 World Series, long after that train had departed.

Kershaw did this in Game 5 of the 2016 NLDS, a 4-3 win back when the Dodgers were the ambitious underdogs and the Nationals were lordly, but haunted.

After the Dodgers withstood a good start by Max Scherzer, they feasted upon five Washington relievers in the seventh inning, with Carlos “Chooch” Ruiz and Howie Kendrick, now wearing red, getting big hits. Jansen entered in the seventh inning and faced 12 batters. When he reached the end of that rope, Kershaw relieved him and got Daniel Murphy, who hit .438 in the series, to pop up with one out in the ninth.

That was a graduation night for the Dodgers. They lost to the champion Cubs in the NLCS, but they’ve won 20 postseason games since, and four series. Oddly, the two they lost were the only ones that ended at Dodger Stadium.

Buehler-Strasburg sounds like one of those World War I-era treaties in our 11th-grade world history books. It’s probably the best Clinching Game 5 collision since Verlander (Detroit) beat Sonny Gray (Oakland) in 2013.

But it likely will be decided by which bats swing best and which bullpen gates swing least.

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